Creating the perfect first contact email to send to your IDX registrations

Crafting the perfect “first contact” email

This email is specifically for your first automated email that goes out when users sign up via your IDX (this one is sent directly by your IDX/MLS system)

If you can’t control (95%) what is said, and how much is said, in your first email via your IDX/MLS, you need to change IDX providers.

FEATURED DOWNLOAD: The 7 questions to ask an IDX provider before you commit (checklist & comparison template). Click here to download.

Always remember, this is your business. Your IDX vendor does not have a clue about email marketing & conversion. Don’t ask them their opinion. Their first priority is to protect the load on their servers and to protect their email reputation. Seek out the truth of what actually works in the real world.

The 4 “S” Elements of a perfect first contact email:

Singular

It must have a singular focus.

What is that focus?

The goal for this email is not to get the contract. It’s not to get a phone call.

It’s only goal is to get opened, get read and get a reply, otherwise known as starting a relationship.

Why is this your goal? Because you want to make sure all your emails get to this person.

You are building your email reputation with their email provider (so you get through the spam and block gates).

You are training them that what you have to offer is spot on and valuable, that it’s worth their time to open and read, that you want them to click a link or respond… aka to take action.

Short

You must keep it short.

What is short? No more than 5 sentences, total.

Why short?

Because you don’t have any relationship with this person. None.

You have not given them any value or reason to open and read your emails.

You need to start building that know, like and trust relationship and it starts with short, succinct emails.

Simple

You must keep it simple. This is not your opportunity to dump everything on them.

You don’t need to blatantly promote you or your services.

You don’t need to overwhelm them.

You need to focus them.

To bring them along their customer journey one step at a time.

We don’t even realize we’re doing this, but we are:

Stop thinking from a mindset of scarcity and lack and start thinking from a mindset of abundance.

Emails that try to get “all points in” create the energy of desperation and that energy is FELT by the recipient.

Example:

“I see you were looking for homes in XYZ. But if that area doesn’t work there’s also ABC. And if you have a home to sell you can DO THIS. And if you aren’t ready to sell check out our property management. And, if you just don’t want to move, you can refer me because I heart referrals. And if referrals aren’t your vibe…” and so on and so forth.

Service

You must come from a place of service, but not the service of “I can help you buy or sell.”

You need to come from a place of service that makes progressive sense.

What do I mean? I mean that after they’ve logged into your IDX, what is the next logical step, the next logical conversation you should have with them?

Here’s a hint, it’s not “what home do you want to see.”

It’s “how was your experience – did the tech work – did you run into any snags while using the portal?”

What to include in your first contact email:

First Name

You want to use their name – just their first name – in your email.

Clean Signature

What do I mean by “clean signature?” I mean short. Concise. Use your name and brokerage (OR team name).

I mean something like the following:

Christina
SKE Realty Group LLC

Post Script

You want a short, succinct P.S. that is the CTA from the main body of your email, worded slightly differently

Footer

This needs to include your brokerage, legal disclaimer, whatever, but without links and in a slightly smaller font and it needs to be at least 10 line spaces below your Post Script. It also needs to include your one-click unsubscribe.

What not to include in your first contact email:

Your story

This email isn’t about you, it’s about them. They don’t care about you until they know you care about them.

A safety net

Don’t be so focused on scarcity that you try to grab all possible ways they could use your services.

Multiple calls-to-action

When you have more than one CTA you confuse them. You overwhelm them. Don’t do that.

Multiple links

Not only is this a confuse/overwhelm issue for the reader, it’s also a deliverability issue. If you have more than one link, your deliverability drops drastically.

Logos or images

Another email deliverability issue. Additionally, it’s a wrong focus issue… branding or exposure vs. converting into a relationship.

Remember, your goal in your first contact email is to get into their email inbox and to get opened. It’s a bonus if you are able to start a conversation.

The best way to start a conversation with anyone is to focus it on them without exuding pressure from them.

Think of their most logical, smallest step in movement, while also anticipating their struggles / thoughts.

Here’s a case study from one of our Leads and Leverage members you can download and check out. I’ve included the original email and the re-written email.

FEATURED DOWNLOAD: The 7 questions to ask an IDX provider before you commit (checklist & comparison template). Click here to download.

by Christina Ethridge 6 Comments

Is your email marketing dying? Here’s how to revive it in 5 steps

I find it interesting how we, as an industry, utilize email. Mostly what I find interesting is how we are failing miserably at using such a powerful tool. The real estate industry, as a whole, sucks at leveraging email.

We use free personal email addresses and expect people to take us seriously.
We email randomly, infrequently, and can’t figure out why it’s not working to convert people.
We send out canned crap and wonder why nobody actually reads what we are sending them.

We are afraid of being a nuisance, and rightly so! What we are emailing, how we are emailing, why we are emailing, when we are emailing, and who we are emailing are all out of whack. We don’t know what we are doing and we refuse to take the time to learn how to use email.

Featured Download: Avatar Creator Template. Email marketing is easier when you know your avatar. (Download now)

We have got to turn our thought process upside down. We need to change our mindset. We need to look outside of the real estate industry and watch the businesses that are using email. Businesses that are having phenomenal success while others, like the real estate industry, languish.

The real estate industry, as a whole, sucks at leveraging email @CEthridge

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One of the key pieces when it comes to leveraging email is that you have to realize that you aren’t “email marketing.” This isn’t about sending out your real estate newsletter, or sending an email every three weeks in hopes of staying “top-of-mind.”

This is about a relationship and relationships grow when we have conversations. With real people. You’ve got to stop throwing emails at your list and start having conversations with the people on your list.

Here are 5 things you can change in your email marketing that will immediately double your results.

First – Stop thinking about your email list as a global whole.

Stop thinking (and acting) as though they are just subscribers. As if they are headless, faceless leads. Start thinking about them as your community, as your tribe. As people who want, and need, your help in their journey.

This means you need to be writing your emails as if you are emailing to one single person. Your emails need to be personal. Your emails need to be an actual conversation. And no, I’m not talking about making sure their name is in the email. While this is good, it’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about one-on-one and building know, like, and trust relationships with a single person. You need to be writing your emails as if you were standing in front of someone and having a conversation with them. A conversation, not a lecture.

Second – Stop touching and start connecting.

An image I keep seeing in my mind about how the real estate industry uses email marketing is this: A person is standing out in the middle of nothing. Suddenly you come up and start throwing paper at them. On that paper is the canned crap you buy from whatever vendor you are getting canned email crap from.

Then, another real estate agent comes up and starts doing the same thing to the same person with the same canned crap. And then another agent comes up, does the same thing, with the same canned crap. And another and another and another.

In other words, we are just throwing crap at people. We aren’t making a connection. Would you do that in-person, in real life? Then why do we think it’s ok to do that virtually?

I believe it’s because we are disconnected from the idea that “virtual” is real. We erect this amazing wall of stone between what we do with people while we are face-to-face with them and can’t seem to figure out how to do the exact same thing, virtually.

Stop throwing emails at your list and start having conversations @CEthridge

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I also believe it’s because we are so pushed to “systematize” and “assembly line” our business that we forget how to create and build relationships. We think of email as just another assembly line tool when in fact, it’s a relationship building tool. A tool that allows us to build one-to-many relationships. A tool that allows us to leverage our time. A tool that enhances our ability to connect with as many people as possible. But we draw a blank on how to effectively use email as a tool.

Third – Be a real person!

Yes, I know you are real person, but we don’t come across that way when we are sending email to our list. We come across as a robotic commercial when we send out emails in a fancy template newsletter format.

Let’s be real here, do you send one-on-one emails in an image heavy newsletter format? Really? Why? Because it’s got the logo and colors of your brand?

Focusing on “branding” is ruining your email marketing results @CEthridge

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Knock it off. You don’t send an email to your friend that includes all of your branding so stop trying to focus on branding and start focusing on being a real person. Real people send text only emails. Real people send single thought, single topic emails. Real people don’t try to stuff an email full of every conceivable thought they want to share. Real people aren’t focused on the closing table. Real people go through a journey.

Real people are real, with themselves and each other. They reveal themselves to others. People relate to people, not businesses. Reveal your own struggles, your own journey, whether that is directly related to buying or selling a house or not. Relate pieces of your life. Become real to the people on your list.

Fourth – Be useful.

You don’t want to email only when you need something, like a closing in the next month. You need to be helpful and generous all the time.

It’s painfully obvious when real estate agents need more listings or buyers… they send out an email that is usually some fancy looking email with lots of images and tons of canned crap or promotion of their listings.

Guys, this isn’t useful. This is obvious. There is no value in it and your email community simply isn’t interested, which is why you aren’t able to leverage your email list into a forceful piece of lead conversion in your business.

When you are focused on being useful, you aren’t trying to be all things to all people. Remember above when I said to think of the people on your list as an individual you are face-to-face with? Well, do you try to fix all of their problems every conceivable way or do you help them with one thing at a time?

Don’t try to push your agenda onto your email community. Instead, figure out what they are struggling with and help them, a little at a time, in each email.

Be strategic with email, focus on the long-term, here’s how @CEthridge

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Fifth – Be strategic.

Why are you sending an email? What are your expectations?

Listen, the first goal is not to get a “come sell my house” phone call, although this will happen when you do email marketing right. Your goal is to move people along their journey, their journey with you.

That means you’ve got to be strategic. You’ve got to understand that each email you send is a piece of your relationship with them, it’s not the end game. You want to create and build a relationship with them and that only happens with consistency in connecting with them. Notice I said connecting, not touching? Yeah, check out step two above.

Strategy focuses on the long-term outcome, not the short term. To strategically use email in your real estate business, you’ve got to be focused on the long-term outcome.

Again, why are you sending an email? Are your expectations absurd or are they long-term focused? Email marketing is amazing for creating and building relationships, powerful and loyal relationships. But without a long-term strategy, you’ll just be throwing canned crap, randomly, at your list and you’ll accomplish exactly nothing.

When you know who you are emailing, when you intimately understand your avatar, it changes everything.

These 5 things I just talked about become easy. Almost ridiculously easy. That’s why I created an Avatar Creator Template just for you. Click here and I’ll give it to you, free.

by Christina Ethridge 4 Comments

The #1 Real Estate Content Creation Tool You Should Be Using

So you’ve got this empty real estate content calendar. Now you need to fill it.

Don’t have a content calendar yet? These should help:

8 Easy Steps To Build Your Own Real Estate Content Calendar

Step-by-Step Guide To A Successful Real Estate Content Calendar

Where on earth do you find content? How do you keep coming up with ideas?

The number one piece of advice I can give you when it comes to creating and curating content is to listen.

the #1 piece of advice #realestate agents need when it comes to creating & curating content is…

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Listen Listen Listen. Stop talking, start listening. Get your head out of your phone and start listening to the world around you.

The world around you holds all of the content you could ever want. You’ve just got to listen.

Of course, you are going to create some of your content. You are going to write blog posts or maybe do some podcasts or maybe even do some video’s. Once you’ve got some good content created, you are going to publish a short ebook or two. It’s not as hard as you think.

To get ideas for your own content, there are a couple places to go.

First of all, go to your email inbox. What questions are people asking you? Review your conversations with your friends and people you meet who realize you are a real estate agent. What questions do they commonly ask you?

Write those down.

Start answering them on paper, in a voice recording or on video.

There’s your content.

Teach yourself to always have the mindset to be “on the look” for content.

The minute someone asks you a question, trigger your mind to say “hey, that’s content!!”

The minute you are in a conversation and you want to jump in to “inform”, trigger your mind to say “hey, that’s content!!”

Keep notes at all times!

You are out somewhere and something triggers your own thoughts “why on earth would they think that” or “I wish consumers knew this” or whatever.

Write those thoughts down! Hold them captive!

Create content around all of that.

Once you start to notice that ideas are everywhere, you might become a little overwhelmed!

Also, do not be afraid to address the same questions, aka write similar content.

People ask questions all sorts of different ways, even though they are essentially the same question.

Address those same questions from those different aspects. Multiple content.

Don’t assume that just because you’ve discussed one thing that it’s all done, you can’t address it again. You can!

For example, I’ve written about where to get good real estate content before.

However, I was still getting questions.

What I shared wasn’t deep enough or didn’t answer the question for everyone.

Hence, I’m here writing again about finding content. Just a bit deeper, just a bit differently.

So.

You are now creating your own content. But what about all the other holes in your content calendar?

What about 3rd party content?

Well, this one is really easy. There are hundreds of resources out there.

First of all, you need to take some time initially and consider what it is your niche is interested in.

What would interest your niche? Make sure you stay focused on your niche when you provide 3rd party content.

This is the biggest mistake I see agents making when they are posting 3rd party content to their pages.

They are posting articles that are written to other real estate agents, or are flagrantly self promoting (aka “why you should use a real estate agent”, written by a real estate agent), things like that.

The consumer doesn’t like self-promotion. It’s much better if someone else says it. It’s also much better if it’s not something blatant, such as the proverbial “Why you should use a REALTOR®”.

Instead of telling them why they should use you, show them. Show them your expertise through your content.

Effective 3rd party content speaks directly to your niche, in a voice other than your own. Ideally, a voice that does not benefit you.

For example . . . if your niche is home owners (you are a listing agent) in their 50’s (the typical empty nester), what are things most empty nester homeowners want to do? Prepare for a different lifestyle? Downsize? Upsize into a family estate?

So, get yourself out there and find sources that are about these topics.

That’s actually the easy part.

There are literally thousands of blogs out there of DIYers doing all of these things.

Of course there are always the big guys like HGTV, Home Depot and Lowes, but as I said, there are thousands of individuals who are doing these kinds of projects, individuals that your fans will connect with and relate to.

And if you are the one making those connections, you are in a sweet spot with your niche.

To find individuals, do a multitude of google searches and start reading blogs.

Seriously.

You are going to have to know some of these resources. If your niche has these questions, you need to know where to find the answers.

Even better than just posting 3rd party content? Do your research.

Learn about your niche and what their needs are. Learn about it deep enough that you are a solid expert on it. Not on every detail, but on all of their questions, concerns, hopes, fears . . . know enough to be able to show them resources that will help them.

Here are some of my personal favorites:

Young House Love

I’ve followed this couple from the time they first started writing their blog. They were newly married, had purchased their first house and were just learning about DIY. They are now on their 3rd home (they’ve progressively moved-up) and are expecting their second child. I’ve really enjoyed their journey and I’ve learned all sorts of DIY things and found resources through them that I’ve used in my own home.

Thrifty Decor Chick

I’ve followed this lady for several years now. They bought a monster of a house and she reminds me of me, constantly changing what she likes, which means rooms keep changing. I’ve followed her through their journey to get out of debt while simultaneously making their home a wonderful place of respite.

I Heart Organizing

This woman is pretty phenomenal. Over the past 12 years she and her hubby have been upgrading their “cheap” track home. What she’s done is pretty amazing. Some of her ideas are too “cutsy” for me, but not for everyone. I still glean ideas even if I don’t love all of the “cute”.

The Nesting Place

I think she is the first “home” blog I started following, many years ago. Her family has lived in several rentals over the years, and the things she’s done to make those rentals their “home” are phenomenal.

The Lettered Cottage

Lots of great ideas and, they just sold their home they had been blogging about, in 2012. They’ve purchased another home so there will be a whole lot more remodeling and such.

I’ve set these up in Feedly (an RSS reader) and when I’m ready to look for 3rd party content, I spend time in there, reading and enjoying. When I find something that I know my niche will love and relate to, I make sure to put it on my content calendar to share it.

Another great option is to use Google Alerts. The thing with Google Alerts is that if you don’t really work on customizing your keywords, you are going to wade through a whole lot of crap. And I do mean a whole lot of crap.

I do keep a constant supply of Google Alerts going, especially for the clients I work with, however, I have found that finding a fantastic direct resource is often much better than just using Google Alerts.

So then. What about quotes? Do I have to share quotes?

No, you don’t. Personally, I like to. I enjoy inspirational quotes and I’ve found that my fans enjoy them to. I’ve also learned what kinds of quotes they like.

When I’m sharing on my business page (my LeadsAndLeverage Facebook page), I share business focused and life focused quotes. Quotes that are relevant to my fan base. When I’m sharing on my real estate pages, I share home ownership focused and organizational quotes. Quotes that appeal to that fan base.

Most of the quotes I share are from “famous” people. However, I share all sorts of other quotes . . . quotes from my kids, that pertain to the topic, quotes from people I run into on the street, things like that. When I hear something that I react to, I share it.

The key with most of this content is that you have got to listen. Listen to the world around you. Listen more, stop planning your next answer, just listen.

Listen to people, listen to their body language, listen to their words. Listen!

Listening will create more content then you will know what to do with. I guarantee it.

Christina Ethridge is the founder of LeadsAndLeverage.com, helping real estate agents capture, convert and close Facebook leads.